


Hannictober 2017: The Collected Works

by AVegetarianCannibal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Character Death, Crack, Fluff, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Hannictober Challenge, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-27 01:35:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 10,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12570760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: I managed to write or make something for most of this year's Hannictober's prompts. Some of what you find in here will be crack, and some will be far more serious.





	1. Diagnosis: Pumpkin Spice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heat between them is too intense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 1: Pumpkin Spice
> 
> (This one is also posted individually [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12330534), because I didn't realize at the time I was going to write so many of these things.)

Will was surprised at just how game Hannibal had been to give the pumpkin spice lube a go. Will had bought it from the “bachelorette” section of a party supply shop and it was clearly meant as a joke. _He’d_ certainly meant it as a joke, seeing as how vehemently Hannibal turned his nose up at the whole pumpkin spice trend. But the label insisted it was 100% “body and condom safe,” so maybe people really did use this stuff on their honeymoons. And what was the last six months on the run together but a honeymoon?

He was two vigorous fingers into Hannibal’s ass when he realized something was wrong.

“Um, is this stuff supposed to be self-heating?” His fingers were getting rather warm. He grabbed the bottle and skimmed the label. “I don’t think this stuff is supposed to be self-heating.”

Hannibal, on his hands and knees, wiggled his posterior flirtatiously. “Perhaps it’s just that I’m so _hot_ for you, Wi—no, wait. I feel it now, as well.”

Will withdrew his hand and stuck it under the bedside lamp for a better look.

“Yeah, my skin looks a little irritated. We better get you cleaned up before the same happens to you.”

But Hannibal was already up and running to the bathroom, shouting over his shoulder, “Too late! Much too late!”

* * *

An hour later, after several cool water rinses and a liberal application of hydrocortisone cream had failed to bring any relief, they found themselves in the nearest ER.

“We’re going to get caught,” Hannibal whispered. He was sitting gingerly in the waiting room chair, one cheek raised up so the afflicted area wouldn’t make contact with the seat. “If Jack Crawford finds us because I have an irritated rectum—”

“Irritated isn’t the half of it,” Will whispered back. “‘You didn’t see it! My _fingers_ are 'irritated.’ Your _asshole_ looks like a glazed doughnut that a stampede ran over.”

Hannibal winced at the description but didn’t argue further.

They were finally seen by a nurse who just looked tired when Will haltingly explained what had happened. He got as far as describing just what he was doing with his fingers when she cut him off.

“Not judging you,” she said, “but I see a hundred of these cases every fall.”

Will blinked. Hannibal blinked. “You do?” they asked in unison.

“It gets worse every year,” she sighed. “It’s what’s known in the medical community as Autumn Bottom.”

Hannibal looked utterly mortified.

She scanned through her notes. “What brand was it this time? The Pumpkin Spice Booty with the pirate on the label, or the Pumpkin Spice Pleasures with the label that looks like a Yankee Candle?”

“Um, the candle one,” Will admitted.

“Yeah, that tends to be the worst one,” she said, shaking her head slowly.

She got Hannibal set up with a steroid injection as well as a prescription for a topical cream that she said Will could use on his fingers, too. As they left the ER feeling somewhat better, she gave them one last word of warning.

“Just stay away from the novelty products this Christmas,” she said, pointedly looking at Will. “I don’t want to see you back in here with Peppermint's Dick.”


	2. The Moonlit Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darkness awaits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: Moonlight

Will lay awake as Hannibal slept in the crook of his arm. It had been three weeks since they washed up on shore, battered and nearly dead, and they were healing remarkably well. But something was wrong. Something just seemed off… Will glanced up at the moon and tried to let the soft, bluish light comfort him.

*****

They finally gave in to their long pent-up physical lust on the night of a new moon.

It was a union of body and spirit, two minds as much as eight tangled, sweaty limbs. Will could hardly see what he was doing, but he felt every sensation keenly. Sometimes he caught a glint of Hannibal’s silver hair, or the shine of his eyes, but little more than that. Everything was navigated by touch and the sound of their ragged, needy breaths.

*****

Months later, the feeling still hadn’t gone away. Will was more certain than ever that something was wrong. He sat on the verandah with Hannibal, sipping his coffee and looking out over Havana by moonlight. He tried but could not recall what it looked like by day. Certainly he’d seen it in the brightness of the sun, hadn’t he?

The sensation of wrongness intensified.

*****

“Have you felt like something’s kind of weird?” Will asked.

Hannibal glanced up at him from his book, which he was attempting to read by moonlight. “Since when?”

“Since we survived,” Will said. “It’s been years and I can’t shake this feeling.”

“It’s the sun,” Hannibal said matter-of-factly. “It’s gone.”

*****

It was more than just the sun. Lamps were gone. Candles vanished. Will hadn’t seen a flashlight in years. The stores never stocked light bulbs. Any fires he saw were always distant, on the horizon where they could provide no immediate light.

Will wandered out into the field outside their house and shouted up at the moonlit sky.

“WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON?!”

Out of the shadows (and it was all shadows) a tall man (at least Will thought it was a man) approached him.

“Listen, our budget is vanishingly small,” the man whispered. Will thought he might be wearing glasses and sporting a beard. “I mean, that bed you two had sex on the first time was actually a pile of cardboard boxes with a dollar store table cloth over it. We have to hide the corners we cut by filming entirely by natural moonlight. Sorry.”

With that, the man disappeared into nothingness.

Or maybe he was still there, for all Will knew, and he just couldn’t see him because it was so fucking dark.


	3. Raked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3: Leaf Piles

Will got home just before dusk and found Hannibal’s car still in the driveway. That was a bit… puzzling. Will had gotten his text earlier saying he’d be going by at lunchtime to feed the dogs, and here it was almost five hours later.

Suddenly he had a horrible mental image of the dogs swarming Hannibal and knocking him over in their enthusiasm. Hannibal would be lying unconscious on the floor, covered in drool and hair…

But when Will walked through the front door, only the dogs greeted him. Hannibal’s overcoat and jacket lay draped over a chair.

“Dr. Lecter?” Will called out. Louder: “Hannibal!”

A reply came to him from the back yard. “Out here!”

Will jogged around to the back of the house, dreading he might find Hannibal injured in some way, but only found him raking leaves into immense piles.

“Are you landscaping for me?” Will asked.

Hannibal set aside the rake. “Not for you,” he said with a smile.

He walked past Will to open the door and let the dogs out. They all promptly zoomed into the leaf piles, ruining in minutes what had obviously taken hours to create.

“Oh no,” Will gasped.

“This was my intention,” Hannibal reassured him. “I thought they might enjoy it.”

Will laughed, watching as Buster and Zoe chased each other through the leaves. Winston tried to catch in his mouth whatever they kicked up with their paws. The other dogs mostly rolled around, eyes wild and tongues lolling in big, loose-lipped grins.

“Thank you,” Will said. “I think I’m enjoying watching them just as much.”

Hannibal moved closer to watch the show with him. “Then it was all the more worthwhile.”


	4. Rituals of the New Animals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4: Rituals

The animals in the ancient wood are well-acquainted with one another. Some are friends, like the Red Deer and the Raccoon, and others are cousins, like the Squirrel and the Vole. The Foxes are no friends to Rabbits, but they know and understand and are familiar with each other’s ways. The Bears avoid seeking company but know everyone in passing.

Then one day, a new animal comes into the wood.

In fact, two of them arrive together. The Swans think they’re a mated pair. The Wolves guess they’ve formed  a (very small) pack. Most of the Bears write it off as a coincidence and go back to foraging.

The new animals are mostly hairless. The deer take to calling them Naked Bears, which catches on with most of the animals except for the Bears, who think of them as Big Mangy Raccoons because the new animals are certainly _not_ Bears of any kind.

The Naked Bears have odd rituals. They build a large nest together, with four walls and a covering on top. Every night they make fire and sit around it, chanting softly to each other. The Ravens say it’s some sort of mating ritual, which makes sense because they nearly always mate after making the fire. The Swans gloat about being right. No cubs are ever born, though.

Another ritual they have involves the calls they make. One of them says “hannibal” a lot and the other one says “will” in return. What is the purpose of this? No one ever decides for sure.

The other animals in the ancient wood become accustomed to the Naked Bears’ presence, although they never quite grow to understand them.


	5. By Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5: Scarves

Are you cold? The waves ripped away your clothes and replaced them with bruises.

You stoic thing, you refuse to shiver though you must be cold and you’ve lost so much blood.

Let me wrap around you what I can.

Here, a scarf. The murky green looks beautiful on you by the light of the moon.

You’re used to much finer, I know. Silk and cashmere woven by hand.

I made this by hand, as well, just for you, and looped it around your throat. Not spun from a moth’s cocoon but grown by the Atlantic.

Did you know the root of kelp is called a holdfast?

I held fast to you, but not enough, it seems. Just as these murky green fronds were torn from their home by the sea, so I was torn away from you.

Are you colder still? The sun will be up soon, and so will the tide.  Don’t worry, please don’t worry.

You’ll be dressed to meet them.


	6. Cheese and Opera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 6: Possession

Hannibal awoke when he heard muffled conversation coming from down the hall. More specifically it sounded like it was coming from Will’s bedroom.

He listened for a few moments, only because it sounded like an argument. He’d given up intruding on Will’s privacy. For the most part. But he needed to know if danger was imminent, did he not?

“You’d better not,” he heard Will say. “I swear to fucking God!”

Was Will in contact with Jack Crawford? Local authorities? A bounty hunter who was threatening to renege on a deal? He was fairly certain the Verger-Blooms were not, as of yet, looking for either of them.

“Are you all right?” he called out.

“Perfectly fine!” Will called back.

Will’s bounding footsteps down the hall were followed by him appearing in the bedroom doorway, disheveled and pink-faced and smiling.

“Gosh, I’m so glad to see you again,” Will gushed. He bit his lip and lowered his eyes. “I need to confess something, Doctor.”

Hannibal’s interest and other things were piqued. “What’s that?”

“I-I watched you sleep last night,” Will said, shuffling his feet. “Just for a little while, though! ell, maybe longer than that. I just wanted to be in your presence.”

Hannibal risked patting the pillow beside him. “You know you’re more than welcome to join me. No need to limit yourself to merely watching.”

“Oh! Oh, no, no thanks,” Will said, much too quickly for Hannibal’s liking. “I mean, the thought’s crossed my mind a few times, but what I’d really like to do is go to the opera with you.”

Hannibal blinked. He was too confused to be hurt. “The opera?”

“ _La Traviata_ ,” Will said. “I thought it’s something we could enjoy together.”

Now Hannibal was suspicious. Is that where Crawford was going to apprehend him? The opera! How terribly obvious.

“I’m afraid I’m not in the mood,” Hannibal sniffed.

* * *

When Hannibal later found Will sitting on the kitchen floor, stuffing assorted cheeses into his mouth and listening to Michael Jackson’s greatest hits, he finally realized what was going on.

“Are you Franklyn?” he asked.

Will nearly choked on his thumbful of Camembert. “W-why would you even ask me that? How ridiculous!”

“The lion is in the room,” Hannibal said, crouching down beside him, “and he wants you to answer the question.”

“Are you going to be mad?” asked the man who only looked like Will. A bit of cheese rind clung to his lower lip.

“The question is why aren’t _you_ mad?” Hannibal asked. “I killed you. You could be using Will’s body to eke out some manner of revenge.”

Franklyn’s borrowed eyes went wide. “Oh! No, no, Doctor, I would never. It’s honestly not so bad, where I am now. In a lot of ways it’s better than my life as it was, minus the lack of cheese.”

Hannibal sat down across from him. “The afterlife? Heaven? Some version of it? Certainly not hell. You were a good man.”

Franklyn blushed and failed to suppress a flattered smile. “That means a lot to me, coming from you.”

“It really shouldn’t,” Hannibal said.

He got up long enough to fetch the olive fougasse he’d made the day before, and a handful of tartish grapes. He handed them to Franklyn, saying, “At least eat the cheese with some proper accompaniment.”

Franklyn wasted no time slicing some Cantal Fermier onto the bread and cramming both into his mouth. “God, I’ve missed this!”

“Do you plan to stay in Will’s body for long?” Hannibal asked. “You should know I would find a way to exorcise you.”

Franklyn shook his head. “I only get 24 hours back among the living and I used up a lot of that time watching you sleep.”

“And then you go back to… _where_ , exactly?”

Franklyn looked sheepish in Will’s face. “Sorry. I can’t tell you. It’s some kind of cosmic, metaphysical rule. I probably already told you too much anyway.”

Hannibal tried another tack. “Can you converse with me outside of Will’s body? I heard him talking to you. I’d prefer if you didn’t hijack him.”

“You didn’t sense my spirit watching you sleep, so I’d guess you don’t have the ability,” Franklyn said. “This Will guy’s got a level of perception that’s out of this world—no pun intended.”

“Could you possess me instead?” Hannibal asked.

Franklyn laughed. “You don’t remember from our sessions? I don’t want to _be_ you; I want to be _near_ you.”

“I thought I’d offer,” Hannibal said. “Well, go get dressed and brush the crumbs out of your— _Will’s_ —beard.”

Franklyn blinked up at him even as he hurriedly got to his feet. “Why? Where am I going?”

“You’re going to the opera,” Hannibal said, “with me.”

* * *

After _La Traviata_ , Hannibal bought crêpes au fromage for them both at a little stand near the Opéra Bastille.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Franklyn asked as they ambled through the street. “Feeding me cheese and taking me to the opera….”

Hannibal shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Franklyn rolled Will’s eyes at him. “Come on, Doctor. You were repulsed by my very presence when I was alive. Is it just because I’m wearing this guy?”

“You and I… had a lot in common,” Hannibal said, carefully choosing his words. He could be honest with Franklyn and leave out the parts that might hurt him unnecessarily. “I saw certain aspects of myself in you I wasn’t ready to see.”

Franklyn scoffed around a mouthful of crêpe. “What did you and I have in common?”

“Loneliness,” Hannibal said. “As you said yourself: It comes with a dull ache.”

Franklyn seemed to consider that for a moment, then suddenly stumbled. His face—Will’s face—looked flushed.

“I think my time is about up,” Franklyn said. He gathered himself up, put on a brave face and stuck out his hand.

Hannibal shook it. “Have you made friends? Where you went?”

Franklyn looked chagrined. “I…I haven’t really tried.”

“But there _are_ others, other spirits, with whom you _could_ be friends?” Hannibal asked.

“I suppose,” said Franklyn.

“Then consider it your former doctor’s orders,” Hannibal said, “to make at least one new friend when you go back.”

Franklyn laughed and took one last bite of his crêpe. “I’ll give it my best shot. Bye, Doctor Lecter.”

“Goodbye, Franklyn,” Hannibal said. He had a sudden thought. “Oh, one last thing: I doubt you’ll see him where you’re going, but if you _do_ run across Mason Verger, please gloat a bit that you got to wear Will Graham’s face.”

An instant later, the spirit was gone and Will was entirely himself again. There was no outward difference, but Hannibal could see it plain as anything he’d ever seen anything in his life. He was looking at his Will, and nobody else.

Will glanced all around, frowning at the night sky and bustling crowds. “Where in the hell are we? What in the hell am I doing here? Hannibal, I could swear I was just talking to a ghost and then—” He clutched at his belly. “Oh, God. Why do I feel like I’ve eaten a kilo of cheese?”

“I’ll explain on the way home,” Hannibal said, offering his arm. He was elated when Will accepted it. He hoped someday, if he had all eternity in whatever place he now occupied, that Franklyn would know the same feeling.


	7. 'Thrope Trope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 8: Werewolves

Will was somewhat surprised when, on the night of a full moon, his dog Winston turned into a human being. He might have been more surprised if he weren’t already used to the strange imaginings of his own mind, but this seemed pretty par for the course..

The human Winston was a young man, perhaps 25, with a riot of wavy auburn hair and a smattering of freckles across his shoulders and the bridge of his nose.

“D-do you do this often?” Will asked.

“Once a month,” Winston said. “You were out of town the last time it happened.”

Will glanced down at the other dogs, who didn’t seem especially disturbed by this turn of events.

Will poured himself a tumbler of whiskey. “So, are you magical or something?”

“I’m a homothrope,” Winston said.

“A…what?”

“The opposite of a lycanthrope,” Winston said. “Basically I’m a reverse werewolf. Once a month, I turn into a human.”

“But…you’re not a wolf the other days,” Will pointed out.

Winston set his jaw. “Dogs _are_ wolves. Look it up.”

“I-I’ll take your word for it.”

He drank his whiskey and poured another. He offered one to Winston, who politely declined.

“I’d rather have a hot chocolate, if you don’t mind. This is the only night I can have it.”

So Will went into the kitchen with Winston following him after a few minutes, having stopped to put on some clothes.

“Did your, ah, previous owners know you were a homothrope?” Will asked.

“Nah, they left me tied up all the time,” Winston said. “They barely noticed me at all, ever.”

Will handed over a cup of the requested hot cocoa, then sat down across the table from his…dog? His guest? Will didn’t know how he felt about all this. Part of the reason he had dogs was that he preferred their company to that of humans. It was a lot to absorb.

“Listen, I gotta tell you something,” Winston said.

Will snorted. “That sounds foreboding.”

“No, no, it’ll all be okay,” Winston assured him. Was Winston even his real name? “It’s just that a couple of days ago, when Buster and I were wrestling, I…accidentally bit him.”

Will blinked. “So?”

Just then, a short naked man padded into the kitchen. He was a wiry little thing, bristling with energy, and sported short brown hair atop his head and tufts of white hair on his chest.

Winston looked sheepish. “Heya, Buster,” he greeted the new man.

Buster sat down at the table and grabbed Winston’s hot cocoa. “Ooh! Chocolate! Can I have this now?” He didn’t wait for an affirmative before downing the rest of the cup.

Will gawped at the scene before him. “You’re Buster?!”

“Yeah,” said the former terrier. “How’s it hangin’, human pal? Better than mine, I bet, considerin’ I ain’t got none anymore.” He jerked a thumb towards his crotch.

Will opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say. Was he going to apologize for getting his dog neutered? He was just being a responsible pet owner!

“Keep ‘em coming,” Buster commanded, sliding his empty cocoa cup across the table. “And how’s about you take us out for a burger and some of those onion rings you’re always sayin’ we can’t have?”

* * *

After he stopped off for fast food, Will sped towards Dr. Lecter’s house.

“That guy makes great sausage,” Buster said in the backseat, cramming a fistful of rings into his maw. “He'sh not bad with the butt shcratches, either.”

“Oh, and he’s got a thing for you,” Winston chimed in.

“Yeah, he’s _totally_ into you,” Buster agreed. “Has he sniffed your butt yet?”

Will flashed on the other day in Dr. Lecter’s office. “Uh, not my butt, no.”

“But he _has_ sniffed you?” Winston prodded.

Will just shrugged. He wasn’t going to talk about his love life—er, his friendships—um, his _working relationships_ —with his dogs. Homothropes or not, they were still his dogs. Weren’t they?

“Oh and there’s one other thing I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Winston started. “That Lecter guy is—”

Will made his silencing noise. “Tss tss!”

A glance in the rear view mirror showed him two very offended faces.

Soon enough he was pulling into Dr. Lecter’s driveway and dragging a very sleep-addled man out to his car.

“Will, I know I said my kitchen is always open, but—”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Will said. “I just need you to look into my car and tell me what you see.”

He waited as Dr. Lecter, looking obviously confused, peered into the Volvo’s back seat.

“Well, they’re very cute,” Dr. Lecter said, “but I don’t know why this couldn’t wait.”

“Because they turn back into dogs when the moon goes down,” Will said. _Duh_.

“What were they before?” Dr. Lecter asked.

Will rolled his eyes. “Obviously they’re homothro—”

Buster barked from the back seat, cutting him off.

As Will watched, two dogs stood up at the back window. There was no sign of their previous human identity except for the fact that they were both still wearing clothes. Buster in particular was nearly drowning in Will’s smallest undershirt and shorts.

Will’s next move was to scan the sky above him to confirm it: the moon had already set.

Had he imagined the whole thing? Had he, in another sleepwalking daze, fed onions and chocolate to his dogs?? His heart thudded at the prospect, but he assured himself this couldn’t have been the case. It had been a few hours since the first round of chocolate. They would have been sick by now. Will knew he might put himself in danger while out of his mind, but he could never risk his dogs.

“Will?” Dr. Lecter asked behind him. “Can you explain what’s going on?”

Winston’s human voice echoed in his memory: _He’s got a thing for you…_

“I-I was looking for any dumb excuse,” Will said.

“For what?” Dr. Lecter asked.

He turned around and grabbed Lecter by the lapels of his robe. “To come here and do this.”

With that, he planted a big, sloppy kiss on his therapist/friend/coworker. After the first stunned instant, he felt hands settle on his hips and pull him closer.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his dogs high-five each other…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I know homothrope as a word doesn't mean what the dogs think it means. Just go with it.)


	8. The Price of Admission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 10: Corn Maze

“I just had a dream,” Will said as he pushed open Hannibal’s bedroom door.

Hannibal moved to make room for him to sit on the edge of the bed. Will took him up on the offer, but kept his distance.

“I dreamed,” he began, “that I went to a corn maze, near where I used to live in Wolf Trap. At first, it looked like any you’d see in any small town this time of year. A bit hokey, even.

"But you were at the entrance selling tickets even though I was the only one there.

"I reached for my wallet and asked, ‘How much to get in?’ and you smiled and told me, 'You’ll pay when you reach the end.’

"I started to go in, but you stopped me and said, 'You must be certain you want to start. The maze is vast, and you’ll become lost along the way. You’ll want to leave, or you’ll _think_ you want to leave, but you’ve heard of a legend concerning this very maze.’

"I didn’t know what he— _you_ were talking about. 'Legend has it,’ you explained, 'that near the end of the maze, just when you think you’re ready to surrender, you’ll find someone you love, and even though it will be someone you think nobody should ever love, you’ll understand why you do, and you’ll understand why you pay the price you do.’

"So I entered the maze, and he was right. I got lost. I was exhausted. I stumbled, I fell, the dried stalks of corn slashed at me until I bled. I felt as if I wandered through there for years.

"And a part of me understood it was a dream even as I was dreaming it, and I thought, 'It will be Hannibal you find at the end, of course.’

"But it wasn’t.

"When I crawled through the last twist of the maze, a hand reached out to help me up, and when I looked up, it was into my own eyes.

"He smiled at me—my _self_ smiled at me—and he got me to my feet. 'Do you understand?’ he asked. And when I said I did, he kissed me on the mouth. 'Just this,’ he said, and turned me toward the exit of the maze.

"Then you were there again. 'Are you ready to pay the price?’ you asked. ‘Do you know what it is?’ I told him I did, and I woke up in my bed, and then I came in here.”

Hannibal stared at him for a long while before speaking. “What was the price?”

“It’s not a price at all,” Will said, and moved to kiss him for the first time. “It’s just this.”


	9. Bête Noire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 11: Black cats

The cat started showing up soon after they moved into the bungalow. Will supposed she was one of the many feral cats—there is always an abundance of feral cats near fishing villages—but she wasn’t a wiry little thing like they were. She had silky black hair, and dark eyes like Will had never seen on a cat before.

“We won’t be here for long,” Hannibal reminded him.

“I know,” Will said, and started putting out leftover fish for her anyway.

* * *

It was clear from the start she didn’t like Hannibal. In fact, she appeared to loathe him.

At first she merely fled at his presence, but as she grew in confidence she made her displeasure known through more direct methods.

She stole his drawing pencils, defecated in his shoes, and scratched the leather seat of his favorite chair.

“Does that look like the letter ‘b’ to you?” Will asked, studying the marks in the leather.

“Perhaps she’s trying to tell us her name,” Hannibal said. “Which is obviously Bête Noire.”

Soon after that, the physical attacks began.

Over the course of a few nights, whenever Hannibal was undressed, Bête would stalk him in utter silence and leap, dragging a single claw down his back. This continued until he had five parallel lines in his flesh, as if he’d been precisely sliced into equal pieces.

Will scooped her up and carried her outside before Hannibal could even finish cursing her.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said as he set her down on the porch. “I… I _love_ him.”

Bête seemed to look at him for a long time, as if she were absorbing and considering what he’d said. He had to be imagining it, but she looked downright disappointed in him. Maybe it was a cat thing. He still didn’t really know much about them.

* * *

When Will got up the next morning to check Bête’s dish, her food was still there and she was nowhere to be seen.

For the remainder of the time they were on the coast, Will checked with the local fishermen. A few of them said they’d seen her around town, but noted that she no longer ventured anywhere near the rental bungalows.

As he and Hannibal were driving away for the last time, Will caught sight of her, just for an instant. She locked eyes with him and then, as he would swear to his dying day, she shook her head at him before turning around and disappearing down a crowded street.


	10. The Bone Puns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 12: Bones

Will walked into the den and found Hannibal holding a plate of assorted bones.

“Pick one,” Hannibal said.

Will just looked at him.

“Go on,” Hannibal urged him, thrusting his plate forward.

Will cautiously lifted up what looked to be a chicken vertebra.

Hannibal nudged him. “I guess you could say… I’ve got a _bone_ to pick with you!”

***

A few hours later, Will went into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. However, when he opened the cabinets he found all the plates gone. The bread was nowhere to be seen, and the spice jars had vanished, too. The only thing inside appeared to be a femur, luckily not human.

Suddenly, Hannibal popped up behind him.

Will jumped forward with a startled yelp.

“Oh would you look at that,” Hannibal said. “The cupboards… are as _bare_ as a _bone_!”

***

That night, Will found Hannibal in his bed wearing a black lycra bodysuit upon which had been painted a skeleton. He was stretched out on top of the duvet, one hand propping up his head, giving something of a seductive grin.

“Will, do you know what this means?” Hannibal asked.

“Does it have something to do with bones?” Will asked.

“Indeed it does,” Hannibal said. He wiggled his painted pelvis. “One could say it has to do with my…wanting to _bone_ you.”

Will was baffled but took off his clothes anyway.

“What was with all the bone puns today?” he asked as he hopped into bed.

“Today’s Hannictober prompt was ‘bones,’” Hannibal explained, “and the author couldn’t think of anything but puns.”

“Well,” Will said, “I think we should throw her a _bone_ , then.”

And then he peeled off Hannibal’s skeleton bodysuit and threw it at me, the end.


	11. The Tale of the Hunter and the Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 13: Scary Stories

One night a year, the villagers went to the pub to tell and hear scary stories. They hadn’t heard anything but the same old tales over and over again, so when an old man walked in with a promise of something new, they welcomed him.

He had light blue eyes that might have been darker and brighter in his youth, and long silver hair that fell in curls over his brow and past the nape of his neck.

“The monster was a lonely creature,” the man began as he sat by the fire, “although he never considered himself so, as he was too occupied in the delight of his killing.

"He was seven feet tall if he was an inch, and slender as a skeleton wrapped in gleaming black leather. Great antlers grew from his head, the tips as sharp as thorns, and his long fingers looked like jointed blades. Some people called him the Wendigo, others the Stag Man. Others who’d never seen him and only knew him through his mayhem called him the Ripper.

"Then one day he met a hunter who’d lived his entire life as a fisherman.”

One of the pub’s denizens piped up. “Oi, what’s the difference?”

“One stalks, the other lures,” the old man said, waving an impatient hand. “Now, the monster was smitten from the start. He saw the fisherman’s true nature and thought he’d found someone with whom he could finally hunt.

"You see, the monster, for all his killing was never really a hunter. He didn’t have _prey_ so much as _pigs_ , and once he realized he could have more, he could never again be content with less.

"There was a long and winding and… _terribly bloody_ … road, but at the end the fisherman came to accept that he was a hunter. He also came to accept that he loved the monster, and that the monster loved him back.”

Here the old man loosened the knot of his tie and straightened up a bit. He wasn’t nearly as frail as he’d seemed at first.

“The monster and the hunter learned two things together,” he went on. “The first was that love didn’t soften them, but made them _more_ deadly, because they could kill together. The second was that they could kill…with a _purpose_.

"That purpose,” the old man said, now fixing his gaze on a younger man in the corner of the pub, “might be to hunt down someone who liked to hurt little children.”

The young man averted his eyes and sank into his seat. Other pub patrons looked nearly as nervous.

“That _purpose_ ,” the old man went on, “might be to hunt down everyone in this very village who protected him.”

The bartender threw his rag down, fuming. “Now, listen here, you’ve had your fun—”

The old man got to his feet, far more quickly than someone his age should have been able.

“Oh, my fun is just starting.”

The pub door flew open just then with a billowing gust of chill autumn wind. Screams went up among the crowd at what they saw standing silhouetted in the doorway, looming impossibly tall with antlers sprouting from its head.

Afterward, when all the guilty parties were lying dead or well on their way, the hunter approached his monster.

"A bit dramatic,” he said, touching the branches and twigs his monster had tied to his head. “Don’t you think?”

“Me? Dramatic?” scoffed the monster, and held his hunter. “You’re the one who insisted on telling them a scary story first.”


	12. The Cutting Curse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 14: Curses

Molly isn’t quite sure what she did to piss off the little old man, but he looks like an angry garden gnome waving his gnarled walking stick at her. She just wants to get to her last class if the day, but he darts in front of her no matter where she tries to move.

“I’ll put a curse on you,” he swears. “I’ve got magic powers, so don’t think I won’t!”

“I don’t even know what I did!” she cries.

“You cut in front of me at the coffee shop,” he says.

She snorts. “You want to curse me for _that_?”

“I’m magically powerful,” he says, “but petty as fuck!”

“Look, I apologize,” she says with a sigh. “I’ve had a lot on my mind with finals and—”

“Too late!” the old man snaps.

With a flick of his wrist, his walking stick becomes a glowing wand.

“I hereby curse you to marry the love of your live,” he says with a flourish of his wand.

“That doesn’t sound like a curse,” Molly points out.

“You didn’t let me finish! Now there’s an _extra_ curse!”

“All right go on,” she tells him, waiting more patiently this time.

“Marrying the love of your life will give you such a _yearning_ for love,” he says, “that you will fall in love again _all too easily_ after he dies!”

She doesn’t say anything, although again, it doesn’t sound like that much of a curse. Sure, it sucks her future love is going to die, but everybody has to die sooner or later. The important thing is that they’ll apparently have great love.

“Now here’s the extra curse,” the old man cackles, swirling his arms around in dramatic fashion. “For you see… the next man you fall in love with…will leave you… _for a cannibal!_ ”

She thinks about that for a few moments and asks, “Wouldn’t I see that kind of thing coming, though?”

The old man turns his wand back into a walking stick. “Nope, that’s the part of the curse where I said you’d fall for him all too easily. You’re gonna ignore his sordid past and all the really, really blatant signs.”

With that he hobbles his way around her, leaving her to blink in confusion, and promising herself to never cut in line in front of anyone, ever again.


	13. Cider House Brews

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 15: Hard Cider

“Try this,” Hannibal said as he handed over a tall glass reddish liquid.

Will accepted the glass and took a sip. It was heady, tart, and prickled his tongue with effervescence.

“It’s good,” Will said, and took a bigger drink. He had to amend his opinion. “It’s _really_ good.”

“I made it from Pink Ladies,” Hannibal said.

Will nearly choked. “What the hell! We agreed! No more killing until we move.”

“A Pink Lady is a variety of apple,” Hannibal told him. “It’s nothing nefarious.”

Will, feeling much better now, took three long pulls on his drink. It was the best hard cider he’d ever had. Not too sweet, but still fruity, with an almost salty, briny finish.

“Although,” Hannibal said, “there is a little bit of our nosy former neighbor in this batch.”

“God damn it, Hannibal! You promised!”

“In my defense, I brewed this batch before we came to that agreement.”

Will fumed, but Hannibal had him on a technicality. What could he say?

“Pour me another glass, please.”

  



	14. Hop/Flop/Oops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 17: Transformations
> 
> (This will likely be incredibly confusing if you're not family with the [Cannimal Sanctuary](https://byk23.tumblr.com/tagged/Hannipenguin-And-Will-Mongoose).)

Hannibal awoke with an odd but undeniable urge to place an egg on the tops of his feet and settle his belly flap down over it it to keep it warm.

He noticed no other changes in his thought patterns. He still wanted to eat people and spend every waking moment gazing upon Will. He still wanted to cause trouble for Jack Crawford and listen to beautiful music. He poked around in his own mind, exploring, as one would poke one’s tongue around one’s mouth to search out a cavity. Nothing else seemed out of place.

Suddenly, he let out a sort of honking chirp.

When his hand flew to his mouth in shock, he realized it was not a hand but a flipper clad in short, sleek feathers.

He threw back the covers on his bed and saw that his once-long, graceful legs were now squat and sturdy, and terminated in two webbed feet.

“Will, Will, wake up,” he said, flapping wildly to the side.

Will batted his flippers away. “What the hell, Hannibal? I’m trying to sleep!”

“I appear to be some kind of fat bird,” Hannibal said.

Will sat up in bed next to him.

Hannibal shriek-honked.

“Y-you’re an otter,” Hannibal said.

“You’re a penguin!” Will cried at the same moment.

They hopped/flopped out of bed and ran about their home as quickly as their squatty legs would carry them. There was much screaming and cursing and general confusion. What could have been the catalyst to such a transformation? Hannibal, like most men _and_ penguins of science, did not believe in magic. But how else to explain their metamorphosis? 

Perhaps, he thought as he alternately scampered and stumbled all over the place, there was some twist of quantum mechanics at work. If every possible universe exists, could there not be one in which he and Will were penguin and otter respectively? Had he unknowingly opened a doorway to said universe while working on his time-travel formulas?

Eventually, Will caught sight of himself in a mirror. “Oh hey, I’m a _mongoose_ not an otter.” He turned to look at his posterior. “My tail is so thick!”

“You _have_ been eating a lot of my cooking lately,” Hannibal pointed out.

“I don’t think your cooking would give me a thick tail,” Will said. “Or a tail at all! Or a mongoose body!”

They resumed screaming and flailing and cursing and descending into general confusion. Through it all, Hannibal remained aware of the intense desire to nestle an egg between his feet and his belly.

* * *

On the other side of the observation window, Alana turned to look at Chilton. After extensive surgery, he looked halfway like himself again. Grad students from the bio-mechanics lab had 3D-printed him some new lips that closely matched his old ones, right down to the smirk.

“Why, exactly, did you convince them they’re a penguin and mongoose?”

“That wasn’t entirely intentional,” he admitted. “Someone left a nature documentary on while I was hypnotizing them and something must have stuck.”

“So what _was_ your intention?” Alana asked.

“I’ve convinced them they’re not murderers,” Chilton said, puffed up with accomplishment. “Their killer instincts have now disappeared 100%.”

Alana turned back to the window. Hannibal had somehow gotten his hands on a chef’s knife. Why would Chilton have allowed him a knife in the lab environment? Of course, this was Chilton, so the answer was most likely hubris.

Will was chasing Hannibal around the room.

“I’m going to kill whoever did this to us!” Hannibal cried as he hopped madly.

“You can’t murder your way out of every situation!” Will shouted after him.

“It’s not murder if I’m a penguin!” Hannibal shouted back.

Alana didn’t have to look at Chilton to know he was fuming with embarrassment.

"Oops," she said. “Better luck next time..."


	15. What the Doll Means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 19: Voodoo Doll

Jack gave it to him before the trial with a grim look of apology. “We had the lab look it over. X-rayed it, put it under the microscope. There’s nothing weird about it except… the whole thing is weird. He just wanted you to have it, and I wanted—”

“You wanted to see my reaction,” Will said, cutting him off. “To see if it meant anything. I promise you, Jack, this isn’t a secret message telling me how to break him out of jail.”

Jack had the decency to look moderately chagrined, or at least pretend to.

“I can tell him you wouldn’t accept it,” he offered. “Throw it right into his cell… or whatever you want me to do.”

Will was already putting the thing in his pocket. “I’ll dispose of it myself.”

***

“It” was a voodoo doll, about as high as Will’s middle finger was long.

The construction was crude, most likely given Hannibal’s limited access to crafting supplies. He shouldn’t have been able to make it at all, but Will imagined Hannibal had bartered with Alana for what he needed. The end result was a muslin figure stuffed with paper, wrapped in a scrap of Hannibal’s own clothing, and topped with a tuft of his hair.

Will had lived in New Orleans long enough to have seen things he couldn’t explain. The membrane between magic and reality was sometimes as permeable as a single layer of skin.

Still, he wasn’t sure about the doll until he brought it back to court with him.

He sat near the back corner of the room, but with a line of sight to Hannibal in profile. Watching carefully, he slipped his hand into his pocket and rubbed his thumb along the back of the doll’s neck.

Hannibal shifted in his seat. Coincidence…

Will rubbed again, his touch feather-soft, tracing slow circles against the doll’s fabric throat.

Hannibal shifted again, tilting his head back just slightly. He licked his lips and seemed not to be listening to the prosecutor’s opening statements.

Will dug his thumbnail into the doll’s throat, right where its Adam’s apple would be.

Hannibal’s eyes closed. His lips parted. During a pause in the prosecutor’s comments, Will could hear Hannibal gasping for breath. He dug his nail in deeper, deeper until the color rose in Hannibal’s cheeks and his lips darkened and the veins stood out in his temples.

Will eased up on the doll’s throat, and Hannibal’s breathing seemed to return to normal.

The judge and prosecutor both gave Hannibal inquisitive looks, but didn’t pause the proceedings.

It was enough for Will to believe the doll’s authenticity. It was enough for him to believe Hannibal had given him the means to hurt him. He could drag it out for years. Hannibal had given him the means to kill him at any time. He could kill him in court, if he wished.

He didn’t wish.

But…

He could push Hannibal to the brink of suffocation again, push further than he just had. Perhaps not today. Perhaps months from now on a random day. Medics would come. An ambulance would come. At an opportune moment, Hannibal would recover as if by magic and fight his way to freedom. And Will would be waiting for him, because what he’d told Hannibal about not missing him was a lie. Even if he didn’t give in to the temptation to set him free, there would still remain the temptation to touch him by proxy. Touch him with kindness when missing him was unbearable, or with cruelty…when missing him was unbearable.

Will fled the courtroom without waiting to hear the rest of the opening statements.

A few moments later, Jack followed him.

“Give this back to him,” Will said, taking the doll from his pocket and thrusting it at Jack.

Jack frowned at him. “Did you figure out what it means?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Will lied. “It…it doesn’t mean anything.”

\- end -


	16. Will Graham's Final Missive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 20: Wind Swept

October 20, 1835

My Dearest Sister Alana,

I know your scientific mind will scoff at what I am about to relay to you, and indeed mine would scarce believe it had I not seen it happening over the course of this month.

Every night a creature walks along the edge of the bluff, across the rocky plain and through the windswept fields towards my little house. At the start of its nightly journey, it is as a stag, though black as the ink with which I write to you now. Like any stag in the autumn season, it bears a proud rack of antlers, but unlike any deer of my acquaintance, it also grows feathers about its neck and lower legs.

The feathers are like a raven’s, black with a sheen of blue when turned this way and that in the light. But how have I come to be in possession of some of the creature’s feathers? I have gotten ahead of myself.

The wind blowing across the Atlantic is harsh and snatches away some of feathers as the beast walks closer and closer to my house. It is as if the forces of nature itself are helping it to shed… to molt and transform. I collect the feathers in the morning. 

Dear Sister, the creature does not remain in its stag-raven form. The nearer it comes to me, the more the wind changes it. First it takes the feathers away, then it erodes the stag’s very form, and twists it until the creature stands on two legs.

The antlers remain, and so does the inky darkness of his countenance—at this point, I can no longer think of the creature as anything but “him,” for his form more closely resembles that of a man. His silver eyes seem to search out mine. He is a thing of beauty, dear Sister, and every night the wind seems to bring him closer to me.

I have started to call to him. I have invited him. Tomorrow night, he will walk from the bluff, across the fields, and he will not stop. Or if he does, I will leave my little house and go out to meet him.

I suspect he has ill intentions towards me, but I do not fear them. The only thing I fear, oddly enough, is my complete lack of fear. I feel quite unlike the man I once considered myself. As if the wind has helped me shed some exterior aspect of myself, as well.

If you receive no further word from me, let this be my good-bye and the memory of my love for you, dear Sister.

Yours in this becoming,

_Will_


	17. Herbs and Spices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 23: Witchcraft

As of late, all of Hannibal’s conversations had focused on Will Graham, and this one was no different. However, it _did_ differ in one notable way.

“Witchcraft.”

Bedelia itched to check her watch, but kept her focus on her patient. “Pardon me?”

“It has to be witchcraft,” Hannibal said.

“What does?” she asked.

“His hold on me. Will Graham’s hold on me.” Hannibal kept his hands laced atop his knee, but his thumbs twitched with nervous energy. “He must be invoking some supernatural force to ensnare me.”

“To…ensnare you,” she repeated, buying herself time before she had to come up with something helpful to say. “What makes you think that?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. He was trying to judge if she might be mocking him, but he answered nonetheless. “He brought me herbal tea. Full of sedative herbs and roots, in addition to several spices believed to arouse the male libido. My dreams after drinking the tea are… _frustrating_.”

“So you think he’s trying to seduce you,” she said.

“It seems obvious to me,” he confirmed with a slight shrug.

“To what end would Will Graham be trying to seduce you?” she asked.

“He’s trying to distract me,” Hannibal said. “He’s all I can think about. Day or night. I sketch images of him. I once looked forward to my many other hobbies, but now I only anticipate the moments I can see him again.”

“Hannibal,” she said. “Has it occurred to you that you might have feelings for him completely unrelated to any supernatural element?”

“Of course it occurred to me,” Hannibal said. “But then it also occurred to me that’s just what Will _wants_ me to think.”

Bedelia finally gave in to the urge to look at her watch. “Oh! Too bad we’re out of time. We’ll have to pick this up later.”

Hannibal looked as though he might protest, or press her for a glass of wine, but he merely fumed in silence and left.

**********

Will approached the counter to talk with the old herbalist.

She smiled and beckoned him closer. “Have the teas been working?”

“They seem to be,” he said. “Now I need something to make someone forget he’s a cannibal while also helping him focus on the shapeliness of my behind.”

“The cannibal part I can help with,” she laughed. Then she gave him a thorough look up and down. “But you already have the ingredient for the second part…”

-end-


	18. My Life with the Will Kilt Cult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 26: Sexy Costumes

The party was well under way by the time Will arrived with his Amazon Prime box tucked under his arm. He’d considered not going, since Halloween costume parties were at least 10 more magnitudes of “sociable” than he liked. But Beverly had reassured him that Dr. Lecter would be there, too. He could always find something to talk about with Dr. Lecter and he just… _really_ liked his company.

Beverly opened the door dressed as Elvira. She frowned at him. “Where’s your costume?”

He gestured at his box. “I didn’t have time to change before I left. Can I use your bedroom?”

* * *

As soon as he opened the package, he realized a horrible mistake had been made. Instead of a “Mister Highland” costume, he’d been sent an outfit for something called “The Hot-to-Trot Scot.” The label warned that the contents were “for adults only,” with the model’s body censored in key areas for shelf displays.

“It can’t be _that_ bad,” he told himself, as he started to put the costume on. He was hoping that the warning label was more of a titillating marketing ploy.

Alas, it was not.

The ensemble included a kilt not even long enough to cover his boxer shorts, matching tartan pasties for his nipples, fishnet kilt hose with garters, and a miniature sporran dangling off a cock ring.

“That’s not even where a sporran _goes!_ ” he cried.

He thought the only somewhat decent item was the tam, but then he noticed the little puff on top was actually a fuzzy plush dick and balls.

A knock came at the door. “Are you about ready?” Beverly called out. “Hannibal Lecter just got here and he asked for you.”

Will cracked open the door. “I’m not going out there in this _Braveheart_ porno thing.”

"Oh, it can’t be that—” She started to push her way into the bedroom, and then she saw what he meant. “Oh my God, you look…”

“Right? I look like a pervert,” he said.

She gave a dismissive wave. “No, I mean you look like a dumbass with your boxers hanging out of your kilt like that. You can borrow some of my underwear if you don’t want to go commando.”

* * *

Beverly all but shoved him out of the room and down the hall towards the party. He clutched the tam in front of his crotch. It turned out even Beverly’s most modest “boy shorts” didn’t leave a lot to the imagination even if he _had_ leave off the “sporran.”

“Stop freaking out,” she said behind him. “It’s a Halloween party. Most people are dressed a little porny.”

“But I have a professional reputation to maintain,” he said.

She kept shoving. “Nobody cares! Nobody holds your Halloween costume against you on November first! It’s kind of an unspoken rule.”

As they maneuvered through the living room, Will realized she was right. He saw three women and one man wearing nurse costumes that mostly consisted of a bra and white cap. One guy just had a teddy bear strapped to his crotch and nothing else; Will had no idea what that one was about. Brian Zeller was either a sexy raccoon or a sexy bank robber, judging by his black eye mask. Even Jack Crawford had a goodly amount of skin on display in his caveman getup. Will started to relax.

And then he saw Dr. Lecter.

He was wearing a half-slip that barely covered his upper thighs and clung to his… _everything_. There was no shirt to hide his surprisingly fit physique and amply hairy chest. A bushy gray beard and round-rimmed glasses completed his ensemble.

“A-are you a Freudian slip?” Will asked.

“Indeed I am,” Dr. Lecter said. His eyes widened as he took in Will’s costume, and seemed to linger on the kilt. “For…for all of Freud’s many flaws, he did copularize modern cock therapy.”

Will snickered. “What?”

“Popularize modern talk therapy,” Dr. Lecter corrected himself.

“I see what you did there.” Will said. “You know, I’ve heard that Freudian slips give away one’s subconscious desires. Do you have any subconscious desires to see the sporran that came with my costume?”

“Of course not,” Dr. Lecter said. Will started to panic, but then Dr. Lecter went on: “I assure you that desire is _entirely_ conscious.”

 

-end-


	19. Masked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 30: Masquerade

Will wears a wolf mask that matches the charcoal gray of his tuxedo. Though the mask covers only as far as his upper lip, he uses cosmetics to paint a thick red stripe from his mouth and down his neck to the knot of his neck tie. The tie is the same color as the stripe, and the overall effect is that blood is pouring from the wolf’s mouth. He looks like he’s been hunting.

He hasn’t been, but he is now.

He prowls through high-society prey. They give each other phony laughs and fret about the state of the aged opera house they’re there to celebrate/mourn. Perhaps it’s best the old building is being torn down, some of them say. A prestigious architect has already been contracted to design the replacement.

Will pricks up his ears at a voice he hasn’t heard in almost six months.

“I’m not opposed to modernity,” says the familiar voice. Its owner is wearing a black leather mask adorned with a stag’s antlers and gleaming feathers that sweep back over the crown of his head. “I’m opposed to _rudeness_. I find it rude to the building.”

His comment draws laughter from other partygoers, because they think he’s joking.

Will leans against the wall, knowing he’s in his prey’s line of sight. He only has to wait a minute before the man excuses himself and approaches.

“I knew you’d be here,” Will says.

The stag cocks his head. “How?”

Will quirks a smile at him. “I thought it was rude to the building, too.”

He drags his prey into the coatroom after paying the attendant to go on her break. At first, they don’t take off their masks, but they get in the way of kissing.

Will reaches back and pulls on the bow at the back of the stag’s head, revealing Hannibal’s face. His lips are already smeared with red.

He pins Will against the counter. “I told you to go your own way.”

“I did,” Will says. “This _is_ my own way. Hannibal, my way is you, the same as yours is me.”

He shoves until Hannibal stumbles backward into a rack of fur coats. He gets his thigh between Hannibal’s and thrusts up until they’re rubbing their erections into each other’s hips. When they kiss again, Will tastes the oily lipstick of his masquerade guise and the salty tang of Hannibal’s blood. It only makes him hungrier, and he bends his head to bite Hannibal’s jaw hard enough to break the skin.

Hannibal gives a rough cry and his body shudders. His fingers dig into Will’s back. A moment later, Will can feel the wetness seeping through both their trousers and comes so hard he loses his balance and drags Hannibal down onto the floor with him.

The first thing he says after he has his wits again is, “Stop trying to save me.”

“Or you’ll just hunt me down again?” Hannibal asks.

“That’s exactly right,” Will says, once more donning his mask. “And wouldn’t you rather we hunt down the board that decided to raze this opera house to the ground?”

He finds Hannibal’s mask and holds it out to him.

“Put it on for me,” Hannibal says, bowing his head. It’s his answer.

Will ties the ribbon in a bow again, adjusting the mask over Hannibal’s face until it hides everything but the red of his mouth and the smile on his lips.

Hand in hand, faces hidden, they go hunting together.

 

-end-


	20. Vulpinus Argentum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 31: Happy Halloween!
> 
> (This story actually has nothing to do with Halloween and doesn't fit the prompt, but consider it my way of saying Happy Halloween to you, the reader.)

Out of all his coworkers, Jimmy Price seemed to have the vastest knowledge of… well, random knowledge. Except for Hannibal, and Will couldn’t ask him for obvious reasons.

He waited until they were alone in the lab to broach the subject.

“Jimmy, do you believe in the supernatural?”

Jimmy looked up from a piece of evidence he was analyzing and fixed him with a thoughtful stare. “I suppose it depends on what you mean by supernatural. Do you mean some truly mystical thing that can never be explained, or something that _seems_ supernatural because science hasn’t explained it yet?”

“Uh…” Will turned the topic over in his mind a few times. He imagined the beast shedding its usual form and arising in its once-monthly guise, grinning at him with sharp fangs and leering eyes. “Which category does shapeshifting fall under?”

Jimmy’s eyebrows went up about two inches and he wiggled excitedly in his chair. “Ooh! Now that _is_ an interesting topic to ponder. Are we talking a Kafka-esque metamorphosis or what?”

Will sighed. There was simply no way he could discuss this in hypotheticals. He decided to bite the bullet.

“You have to swear you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you,” he said.

Jimmy made a crossing gesture over his heart. “I swear on my Great-Aunt Rivka’s pot roast recipe, which is literally the only reason anyone in my family tolerates having dinner together.”

With one last glance around the lab to make sure they were still alone, Will lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “One night a month… on the night of a full moon… Hannibal Lecter… turns into… a silver fox.”

Jimmy squinted at him and whispered back, “I _knew_ he was dyeing his hair.”

Will sighed. “This isn’t a hair-dyeing thing. He actually turns into a silver fox.”

Jimmy made little scampering and hopping motions with his hands. “He turns into a fox about yea big? Because that would break the law of mass conservation, unless the fox were _incredibly_ dense for its size.”

“No! No. He’s same size as he is now,” Will explained. “And the same weight.”

“So he’s a _giant_ fox,” Jimmy said. Sounding scandalized: “Does he have a tail?”

Will was growing increasingly exasperated. “Just—stop. Imagine Hannibal Lecter exactly as you know him now, except naked—”

“Done!”

“—and instead of eight shades of brown hair, he has silver hair on his head and chest.”

“So it _is_ a hair-dyeing thing,” Jimmy said. “Wait, why are you privilege to Hannibal Lecter’s chest hair status?”

Will flushed hotly. “Never you mind about that. Do you think I’m imagining things, or do you believe such a transformation is possible?”

Jimmy laughed. “Miss Clairol and I _both_ believe.”

Will rubbed his temples. “For the last time, it’s not a hair-dyeing thing!”

“The alternative is that he’s turning into the exact same version of himself,” Jimmy said, “except with different hair for some reason.”

Will’s face grew hotter as he recalled the other details of the transformation. “I-I wasn’t 100% honest… There are other differences, like he has fangs and he looks at me with an animalistic lust in his eyes.”

Jimmy had the decency to cover his mouth as he laughed uproariously.

“It’s not funny,” Will said.

“Will, dear Will,” Jimmy said with tears sprouting from his eyes, “he _always_ has fangs and looks at you with animalistic lust.”

“No,” Will said, shaking his head so hard his headache threatened to come back. “I would have noticed sooner.”

Jimmy’s laughter wound down to a soft sobbing before he reached over to give Will a pat on the shoulder. Then he waited until Will was looking him in the eyes. “Is it _possible_ you’re just now noticing these things because you’ve started to develop some lustful feelings for the good doctor, too? A month is about as long as hair dye usually lasts.”

Will opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out.

Could it really be that simple? Was Hannibal showing up on his doorstep once a month to… to _woo_ him? Was it just his odd way of declaring his feelings?

Will shook his head again. “I-I’ll give it some thought.”

“You do that,” Jimmy said. “And maybe also get some pictures of the ‘transformation’ to show me—for science.”

* * *

Will waited in bed, wide awake, on the night of the next full moon.

If Hannibal showed up again, it would make the third month in a row. His colleague and friend showing up on his doorstep, leering at him with silver hair? The first time he’d assumed Hannibal was drunk as hell and sent him away without another thought. But the second time… _That_ was when Will began to wonder if Hannibal was a silver fox, because _that_ was when Hannibal grinned at him, exposing his fangs, and then ripped off his shirt to expose his equally silver chest hair. Will had sent him away then, too. At their next appointment together, Hannibal was once again a multi-tonal brunet. Neither of them mentioned what had transpired the night before.

Will opened the door as soon as he heard the front steps creaking. This time would be different, one way or another.

Hannibal stood before him, hair gleaming as silver as the moonlight that touched it. Will regarded him not with a scientific eye, but a romantic one. He had merely been blind to Hannibal’s smiles before, and therefor had never noticed his pointy teeth. They were longer than most people’s, but surely not supernatural, and not the only thing Will had been blind to.

He took Hannibal’s hand and pulled him inside. Their kisses was wild and hungered—ferocious, even. They grabbed at one another, tearing off each other’s clothes as they stumbled and fell onto the bed.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier,” Will said when he had custody of his own lips again. “You’re the same as you’ve always been. Jimmy was right!”

As their feverish kissing resumed, Will let his hands roam all over Hannibal’s body where they soon discovered, sprouting from a space just above the cleft of his buttocks, a long and fluffy tail…

[end]


End file.
